NO MAJOR VIOLENCE IS REPORTED AS COLOMBIANS VOTE

By EDWARD SCHUMACHER, Special to the New York Times

Published: March 15, 1982

BOGOTA, March 14—
Colombians voted today in congressional, provincial and municipal elections that leftist guerrillas had threatened to disrupt. No major incidents were reported.

Polling places were heavily guarded, and all of the country's security forces were on alert. There are about 100,000 candidates for more than 9,000 seats.

A presidential election is scheduled for May 30. Increased Turnout Indicated

Early returns last night indicated that the turnout was several percentage points higher than the 33 percent who voted in the last election two years ago, election officials said.

El Tiempo, a leading daily, projected tonight that the Liberal Party, one of the two major centrist parties, was on its way to a large victory, based on sample precincts. The magnitude of the victory was unclear, editors said, as were its political implications because of a major split between two factions in the party.

''Colombian democracy today has to face its most dangerous challenge in recent times,'' President Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala said in a nationally televised speech tonight.

In the last week leftist guerrillas have burned a number of buses in the major cities of Cali and Medellin, captured a radio station in Popayan and set off a huge bomb here in front of the Palacio Narino, the presidential offices. The bomb killed a shoemaker and wounded at least five other persons. Vote Suspended in 5 Places

The elections have been suspended by authorities in five localities in Caqueta, a sparsely populated jungle department in the southwest corner of the country where guerrillas of the M-19 organization, the largest force, have been most active. The Government says that Cuba arms and trains the guerrillas.

Voter apathy has been traditionally high in Colombia. One reason for greater voter interest in this election may be the split in the Liberal Party, the country's largest. Rival Liberal Slates Offered

Luis Carlos Galan Sarmiento, a 39-year-old former Minister of Education, ran his own slate of candidates against those of Alfonso Lopez Michelsen, a 69-year-old former President and the choice of the party's convention last year to run in the presidential elections in May.

Mr. Galan has announced his intention to run in May, too, and today's election is seen as an gauge to that race. The other two major candidates are Belisario Betancur, the candidate of the Conservative Party, and Gerardo Molina, who leads an alliance of leftist parties.

The Conservatives, the second traditional party, hoped to benefit from the split in the Liberals. The leftists have never won more than 10 percent of the vote, and El Tiempo projected tonight that they may fall under 5 percent this year.

Colombian law does not limit each party to one slate of candidates, and Mr. Galan has not created a new party. Backed by former President Carlos Lleras Restrepo, he has formed a faction within the Liberal Party called the New Liberals and is challenging the old party bosses and ''re-electionismo.'' That refers to a pattern here in which former Presidents, who cannot succeed themselves, wait a term and then run again. Mr. Lopez immediately preceded President Turbay Ayala in office. Lopez Candidates Favored

The slates backing Mr. Lopez were still expected by Colombian analysts to defeat those of Mr. Galan. ''Lopez is older and has more experience,'' William Gonzalez, a 37-year-old night watchman said after dropping his paper ballot in a voting box open to public view.

Mr. Galan, nonetheless, has attracted a large following among the young, who normally do not vote, and among professionals, especially in Bogota. They are attracted by his image as a crusader out to clean up the country's rampant corruption.